| 1. |
- Beal, Jacob, et al.
(författare)
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Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density
- 2020
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Ingår i: Communications Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2399-3642. ; 3:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data.
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| 2. |
- Ding, Xue Bing, et al.
(författare)
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Impaired meningeal lymphatic drainage in patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nature Medicine. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1078-8956 .- 1546-170X. ; 27:3, s. 411-418
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Animal studies implicate meningeal lymphatic dysfunction in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, there is no direct evidence in humans to support this role1–5. In this study, we used dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging to assess meningeal lymphatic flow in cognitively normal controls and patients with idiopathic PD (iPD) or atypical Parkinsonian (AP) disorders. We found that patients with iPD exhibited significantly reduced flow through the meningeal lymphatic vessels (mLVs) along the superior sagittal sinus and sigmoid sinus, as well as a notable delay in deep cervical lymph node perfusion, compared to patients with AP. There was no significant difference in the size (cross-sectional area) of mLVs in patients with iPD or AP versus controls. In mice injected with α-synuclein (α-syn) preformed fibrils, we showed that the emergence of α-syn pathology was followed by delayed meningeal lymphatic drainage, loss of tight junctions among meningeal lymphatic endothelial cells and increased inflammation of the meninges. Finally, blocking flow through the mLVs in mice treated with α-syn preformed fibrils increased α-syn pathology and exacerbated motor and memory deficits. These results suggest that meningeal lymphatic drainage dysfunction aggravates α-syn pathology and contributes to the progression of PD.
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| 3. |
- Fang, Xing, et al.
(författare)
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Microstructure and mechanical properties of the laser welded air-hardening steel joint
- 2024
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Ingår i: Materials Characterization. - : Elsevier BV. - 1044-5803 .- 1873-4189. ; 213
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The decrease in mechanical properties of high-strength steel after welding is an important issue affecting the wide application of high-strength steel. Air-hardening steel is a high-strength steel suitable for lower body structural parts such as subframes. Its application process involves welding, hot forming and other processes. The present work investigates the microstructure and mechanical properties of the air-hardening steel laser welded joint that is air-cooled after hot forming in the two-phase zone (800 °C). The microstructure was characterized by electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The results show that during hot forming, the welded joint transforms from martensite to ferrite and acicular martensite, and the base metal transforms from ferrite to polygonal martensite and ferrite. The difference in martensite morphology between the welded joint and the base metal is attributed to the nucleation positions of austenite. The structural evolution of the welded joint and the base metal is accompanied with the annihilation and reproduction of dislocations, which results in significant changes in hardness. The hardness value dropped from the highest 430 HV to 271 HV in the welded joint, while increased from the lowest 184 HV to 203 HV in the base metal. After hot forming, the tensile strength of the welded sample is reduced by only 36 MPa, and the total elongation is slightly decreased by about 1.5% compared with the unwelded sample. The welded joint and the base metal have similar plastic deformation capabilities, since the acicular martensite in the welded joint displays good plastic deformation ability, and the dislocation density of the welded joint and the base metal is similar. Overall, the microstructure and dislocation density of the air-hardening steel welded joint after hot forming are similar to those of the base metal, which is responsible for the good mechanical properties of air-hardening steel welded joint.
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| 4. |
- Gui, Xinru, et al.
(författare)
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Identification and validation of volatile organic compounds in bile for differential diagnosis of perihilar cholangiocarcinoma
- 2023
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Ingår i: Clinica Chimica Acta. - : Elsevier. - 0009-8981 .- 1873-3492. ; 541
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Early and differential diagnosis of perihilar cholangiocarcinoma (PHCCA) is highly challenging. This study aimed to evaluate whether volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in bile samples could be emerging diagnostic biomarkers for PHCCA. We collected 200 bile samples from patients with PHCCA and benign biliary diseases (BBD), including a 140-patient training cohort and an 60-patient test cohort. Gas chromatography-ion mobility spec-trometry (GC-IMS) was used for VOCs detection. The predictive models were constructed using machine learning algorithms. Our analysis detected 19 VOC substances using GC-IMS in the bile samples and resulted in the identification of three new VOCs, 2-methoxyfuran, propyl isovalerate, and diethyl malonate that were found in bile. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering analysis supported that VOCs detected in the bile could distinguish PHCCA from BBD. Twelve VOCs defined according to 32 signal peaks had significant statistical significance between BBD and PHCCA, including four up-regulated VOCs in PHCCA, such as 2-ethyl-1-hexanol, propyl iso-valerate, cyclohexanone, and acetophenone, while the rest eight VOCs were down-regulated. ROC curve analysis revealed that machine learning models based on VOCs could help diagnosing PHCCA. Among them, SVM pro-vided the highest AUC of 0.966, with a sensitivity and specificity of 93.1% and 100%, respectively. The diag-nostic model based on different VOC spectra could be a feasible method for the differential diagnosis of PHCCA.
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| 5. |
- Jiang, Bing-Xin, et al.
(författare)
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Fabrication and bonding of In bumps on Micro-LED with 8 μ m pixel pitch
- 2024
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Ingår i: ENGINEERING RESEARCH EXPRESS. - 2631-8695. ; 6:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Indium (In) is currently used to fabricate metal bumps on micro-light-emitting diode (Micro-LED) chips due to its excellent physical properties. However, as Micro-LED pixel size and pitch decrease, achieving high-quality In bumps on densely packed Micro-LED chips often presents more challenges. This paper describes the process of fabricating In bumps on micro-LEDs using thermal evaporation, highlighting an issue where In tends to grow laterally within the photoresist pattern, ultimately blocking the pattern and resulting in undersized and poorly dense In bumps on the Micro-LED chip. To address this issue, we conducted numerous experiments to study the height variation of In bumps within a range of photoresist aperture sizes (3 mu m -7 mu m) under two different resist thickness conditions (3.8 mu m and 4.8 mu m). The results showed that the resist thickness had a certain effect on the height of In bumps on the Micro-LED chip electrodes. Moreover, we found that, with the photoresist pattern size increasing under constant resist thickness conditions, the height and quality of the bumps significantly improved. Based on this finding, we rationalized the adjustment of the photoresist pattern size within a limited emission platform range to compensate for the height difference of In bumps caused by different resist thicknesses between the cathode and anode regions. Consequently, well-shaped and dense In bumps with a maximum height of up to 4.4 mu m were fabricated on 8 mu m pitch Micro-LED chips. Afterwards, we bonded the Micro-LED chip with indium bumps to the CMOS chip, and we found that we could successfully control the CMOS chip to drive the Micro-LED chip to display specific characters through the Flexible Printed Circuit (FPC). This work is of significant importance for the fabrication of In bumps on Micro-LED chips with pitches below 10 mu m and subsequent bonding processes.
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| 6. |
- Jin, Ying-Hui, et al.
(författare)
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Chemoprophylaxis, diagnosis, treatments, and discharge management of COVID-19 : An evidence-based clinical practice guideline (updated version)
- 2020
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Ingår i: Military Medical Research. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2054-9369. ; 7:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the cause of a rapidly spreading illness, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), affecting more than seventeen million people around the world. Diagnosis and treatment guidelines for clinicians caring for patients are needed. In the early stage, we have issued "A rapid advice guideline for the diagnosis and treatment of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) infected pneumonia (standard version)"; now there are many direct evidences emerged and may change some of previous recommendations and it is ripe for develop an evidence-based guideline. We formed a working group of clinical experts and methodologists. The steering group members proposed 29 questions that are relevant to the management of COVID-19 covering the following areas: chemoprophylaxis, diagnosis, treatments, and discharge management. We searched the literature for direct evidence on the management of COVID-19, and assessed its certainty generated recommendations using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. Recommendations were either strong or weak, or in the form of ungraded consensus-based statement. Finally, we issued 34 statements. Among them, 6 were strong recommendations for, 14 were weak recommendations for, 3 were weak recommendations against and 11 were ungraded consensus-based statement. They covered topics of chemoprophylaxis (including agents and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) agents), diagnosis (including clinical manifestations, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), respiratory tract specimens, IgM and IgG antibody tests, chest computed tomography, chest x-ray, and CT features of asymptomatic infections), treatments (including lopinavir-ritonavir, umifenovir, favipiravir, interferon, remdesivir, combination of antiviral drugs, hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine, interleukin-6 inhibitors, interleukin-1 inhibitors, glucocorticoid, qingfei paidu decoction, lianhua qingwen granules/capsules, convalescent plasma, lung transplantation, invasive or noninvasive ventilation, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO)), and discharge management (including discharge criteria and management plan in patients whose RT-PCR retesting shows SARS-CoV-2 positive after discharge). We also created two figures of these recommendations for the implementation purpose. We hope these recommendations can help support healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients.
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| 7. |
- Jones, Benedict C, et al.
(författare)
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To which world regions does the valence-dominance model of social perception apply?
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nature Human Behaviour. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2397-3374. ; 5:1, s. 159-169
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Over the past 10 years, Oosterhof and Todorov's valence-dominance model has emerged as the most prominent account of how people evaluate faces on social dimensions. In this model, two dimensions (valence and dominance) underpin social judgements of faces. Because this model has primarily been developed and tested in Western regions, it is unclear whether these findings apply to other regions. We addressed this question by replicating Oosterhof and Todorov's methodology across 11 world regions, 41 countries and 11,570 participants. When we used Oosterhof and Todorov's original analysis strategy, the valence-dominance model generalized across regions. When we used an alternative methodology to allow for correlated dimensions, we observed much less generalization. Collectively, these results suggest that, while the valence-dominance model generalizes very well across regions when dimensions are forced to be orthogonal, regional differences are revealed when we use different extraction methods and correlate and rotate the dimension reduction solution. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 5 November 2018. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7611443.v1 .
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| 8. |
- Shi, Haonan, et al.
(författare)
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Prevalence, risk factors, impact and management of pneumonia among preschool children in Chinese seven cities : a cross-sectional study with interrupted time series analysis
- 2023
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Ingår i: BMC Medicine. - : BioMed Central (BMC). - 1741-7015. ; 21
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Pneumonia is a common disease worldwide in preschool children. Despite its large population size, China has had no comprehensive study of the national prevalence, risk factors, and management of pneumonia among preschool children. We therefore investigated the prevalence of pneumonia among preschool children in Chinese seven representative cities, and explore the possible risk factors of pneumonia on children, with a view to calling the world's attention to childhood pneumonia to reduce the prevalence of childhood pneumonia.Methods: Two group samples of 63,663 and 52,812 preschool children were recruited from 2011 and 2019 surveys, respectively. Which were derived from the cross-sectional China, Children, Homes, Health (CCHH) study using a multi-stage stratified sampling method. This survey was conducted in kindergartens in seven representative cities. Exclusion criteria were younger than 2 years old or older than 8 years old, non-permanent population, basic information such as gender, date of birth and breast feeding is incomplete. Pneumonia was determined on the basis of parents reported history of clearly diagnosed by the physician. All participants were assessed with a standard questionnaire. Risk factors for pneumonia, and association between pneumonia and other respiratory diseases were examined by multivariable-adjusted analyses done in all participants for whom data on the variables of interest were available. Disease management was evaluated by the parents' reported history of physician diagnosis, longitudinal comparison of risk factors in 2011 and 2019.Results: In 2011 and 2019, 31,277 (16,152 boys and 15,125 girls) and 32,016 (16,621 boys and 15,395 girls) preschool children aged at 2-8 of permanent population completed the questionnaire, respectively, and were thus included in the final analysis. The findings showed that the age-adjusted prevalence of pneumonia in children was 32.7% in 2011 and 26.4% in 2019. In 2011, girls (odds ratio [OR] 0.91, 95%CI [confidence interval]0.87-0.96; p = 0.0002), rural (0.85, 0.73-0.99; p = 0.0387), duration of breastfeeding & GE; 6 months(0.83, 0.79-0.88; p < 0.0001), birth weight (g) & GE; 4000 (0.88, 0.80-0.97; p = 0.0125), frequency of putting bedding to sunshine (Often) (0.82, 0.71-0.94; p = 0.0049), cooking fuel type (electricity) (0.87, 0.80-0.94; p = 0.0005), indoor use air-conditioning (0.85, 0.80-0.90; p < 0.0001) were associated with a reduced risk of childhood pneumonia. Age (4-6) (1.11, 1.03-1.20; p = 0.0052), parental smoking (one) (1.12, 1.07-1.18; p < 0.0001), used antibiotics (2.71, 2.52-2.90; p < 0.0001), history of parental allergy (one and two) (1.21, 1.12-1.32; p < 0.0001 and 1.33, 1.04-1.69; p = 0.0203), indoor dampness (1.24, 1.15-1.33; p < 0.0001), home interior decoration (1.11, 1.04-1.19; p = 0.0013), Wall painting materials (Paint) (1.16, 1.04-1.29; p = 0.0084), flooring materials (Laminate / Composite wood) (1.08, 1.02-1.16; p = 0.0126), indoor heating mode(Central heating)(1.18, 1.07-1.30, p = 0.0090), asthma (2.38, 2.17-2.61; p < 0.0001), allergic rhinitis (1.36, 1.25-1.47; p < 0.0001), wheezing (1.64, 1.55-1.74; p < 0.0001) were associated with an elevated risk of childhood pneumonia; pneumonia was associated with an elevated risk of childhood asthma (2.53, 2.31-2.78; p < 0.0001), allergic rhinitis (1.41, 1.29-1.53; p < 0.0001) and wheezing (1.64, 1.55-1.74; p < 0.0001). In 2019, girls (0.92, 0. 87-0.97; p = 0.0019), duration of breastfeeding & GE; 6 months (0.92, 0.87-0.97; p = 0.0031), used antibiotics (0.22, 0.21-0.24; p < 0.0001), cooking fuel type (Other) (0.40, 0.23-0.63; p = 0.0003), indoor use air-conditioning (0.89, 0.83-0.95; p = 0.0009) were associated with a reduced risk of childhood pneumonia. Urbanisation (Suburb) (1.10, 1.02-1.18; p = 0.0093), premature birth (1.29, 1.08-1.55; p = 0.0051), birth weight (g) < 2500 (1.17, 1.02-1.35; p = 0.0284), parental smoking (1.30, 1.23-1.38; p < 0.0001), history of parental asthma (One) (1.23, 1.03-1.46; p = 0.0202), history of parental allergy (one and two) (1.20, 1.13-1.27; p < 0.0001 and 1.22, 1.08-1.37; p = 0.0014), cooking fuel type (Coal) (1.58, 1.02-2.52; p = 0.0356), indoor dampness (1.16, 1.08-1.24; p < 0.0001), asthma (1.88, 1.64-2.15; p < 0.0001), allergic rhinitis (1.57, 1.45-1.69; p < 0.0001), wheezing (2.43, 2.20-2.68; p < 0.0001) were associated with an elevated risk of childhood pneumonia; pneumonia was associated with an elevated risk of childhood asthma (1.96, 1.72-2.25; p < 0.0001), allergic rhinitis (1.60, 1.48-1.73; p < 0.0001) and wheezing (2.49, 2.25-2.75; p < 0.0001).Conclusions: Pneumonia is prevalent among preschool children in China, and it affects other childhood respiratory diseases. Although the prevalence of pneumonia in Chinese children shows a decreasing trend in 2019 compared to 2011, a well-established management system is still needed to further reduce the prevalence of pneumonia and reduce the burden of disease in children.
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| 9. |
- Wu, Jingnan, 1994, et al.
(författare)
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Modulating the nanoscale morphology on carboxylate-pyrazine containing terpolymer toward 17.8% efficiency organic solar cells with enhanced thermal stability
- 2022
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Ingår i: Chemical Engineering Journal. - : Elsevier BV. - 1385-8947. ; 446
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- It had been commonly accepted in the organic photovoltaic (OPV) community that subtle variations in the molecular structure of active layer materials would cause profound impacts on their aggregating structure and blend morphology and therefore the performance of such polymer solar cells (PSCs). Herein, we employed an electron-deficient building block 3,6-dithiophenyl-2-carboxylate pyrazine (DTCPz) for constructing one series of promising donor terpolymers of PMZ1, PMZ2, and PMZ3, respectively, gaining their relatively lower-lying highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) energy levels, more closed π-π stacking and enhanced crystallinity in thin films, and lower miscibility with acceptor Y6, in comparison with their parent polymer counterpart (namely PM6). Reaching DTCPz moieties up to 20% (mol/mol%) in its terpolymer composition, the resulting polymer (PMZ2) achieved more favorable phase separation with improved exciton dissociation, and charge transport and extraction. As a result, an outstanding fill factor of 77.2% and a promising power conversion efficiency of 17.8 % was achieved. Moreover, the corresponding device shows better thermal stability over the PM6-based one. This work suggests a facile method for significantly improving the thin film morphology of the active-layer materials via fine-tuning the chemical structure of electron-deficient units on the backbone of the wide bandgap donor polymer, therefore achieving enhanced photovoltaic performance and thermal stability for practical applications.
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| 10. |
- Xin, Yiwei, et al.
(författare)
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Fusobacterium nucleatum- induced exosomal HOTTIP promotes gastric cancer progression through the microRNA-885-3p/EphB2 axis
- 2023
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Ingår i: Cancer Science. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 1347-9032 .- 1349-7006. ; 114:6, s. 2360-2374
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recent studies have reported that Fusobacterium nucleatum (Fn) is associated with gastric cancer (GC). Cancer-derived exosomes contain key regulatory noncoding RNAs and are a crucial medium of intercellular communication. However, the function and regulatory mechanism of exosomes (Fn-GCEx) secreted from Fn-infected GC cells remains unclear. In this study, Fn-GCEx enhanced the proliferation, migration, and invasion capacity of GC cells in vitro, as well as tumor growth and metastasis in vivo. HOTTIP was also upregulated in GC cells treated with Fn-GCEx. Moreover, knockdown of HOTTIP weakened the effects of Fn-GCEx in recipient GC cells. Mechanistically, HOTTIP promoted EphB2 expression by sponging microRNA (miR)-885-3p, thus activating the PI3K/AKT pathway in Fn-GCEx treated GC cells. Overall, Fn infection induced the upregulation of exosomal HOTTIP from GC cells that subsequently promoted GC progression through the miR-885-3p/EphB2/PI3K/AKT axis. Herein, we identify a potential molecular pathway and therapeutic target for GC.
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